Those 2 pupae hatched now. One of them turned into the second biggest major of the colony. So now my colony is at 29 workers. I see another larva in the process of making a cocoon, but I doubt it will be able to hatch before hibernation, which I'll start mid October.

Sorry madhayardan. I'm not sure what you are getting at. I don't understand what your idea is. I think he's saying that you could put some workers of the species you want to make a hybrid nest for in a gelfarm, observe how they make their nests, how the chambers look, etc, and try to replicate that...

Gel farms have been known to kill colonies. There is something toxic about them that is not healthy for ants. They are not for long term ant keeping, only short term. Colonies will die in gel farms. i mean like we have a test subject worker then they dig in gelfarm do they dig normally in the wild ...